I have a philosophy that has served me well throughout many areas of life: Never go back.

Think about it.

Have you ever had the most amazing vacation (great resort, amazing service, unbelievable food, fun people) only to be left disappointed on a return visit? Or perhaps you’ve been tempted back to an employer only to quickly realize why you left them in the first place?

Like I say – never go back.

Perhaps I have a short attention span, but for me (and many of your subscribers), things that were once fresh and exciting can quickly grow tired and dull. Yes – overfamiliarity can lead to contempt.

This is why as email marketers we need to mix things up now and again.

We need to keep our subscribers on their toes and ensure they never get bored.

Running your campaigns to a regular schedule might help you through your working day, week or month – but it will do little to inspire repeat opens and continuous engagement. Because of this you need to remember two things:

A marketer should never plan their campaigns around their own needs (you should already be sold on the product or service you market); always think of your target market first.

Once subscribers stop engaging with your emails on a regular basis, they are on a slippery slope to becoming an ex-subscriber.

This is why I’ll be urging attendees at Email Marketing World 2013 in San Diego next week to kill their dull, uninspiring newsletters and shake up their marketing efforts.

Great marketers plan their campaigns around products, services and their subscribers’ needs – not days of the week, their own convenience or simply out of (bad) habit. They constantly look to improve their campaigns and are always ready to experiment, test and improve because subscriber fatigue and the resulting fall in engagement is wasteful, damaging and, let’s face it, nowhere near as satisfying as keeping things fresh and exciting.

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